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by Jim Bradley

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Just as a break from all the Spiritual posts, and to prove that there is more to me than just that............ I worked on the Railway in the UK for almost six years, starting back when it was a nationalized service - British railways. There may be about two generations of people who don't even remember that now. It was devolved into private companies by the government although the reasons for that were political and nothing to do with creating a good transport system.

Not content with privatizing the actual train companies themselves, the whole infrastructure was broken up and sold off, with the result that one company owned the actual rail track the trains run on, another owned the stations, an other owned the signaling equipment and now there are at least seven different train companies operating services up and down the country. What this means in practical terms is that a train company has to pay to run over the tracks, to use the signals, to use the stations and in paying those other three companies to run a train service, the higher costs are reflected back to passengers, who are being completely ripped off. An example of this is that it could cost 800% more to travel by train from Scotland to London, than it would cost to fly. Depending on the train company used, the route traveled etc. And yet we're still supposed to believe that privatization of our railways has been good for us? Yea right!

It IS a different ball game now though to when I worked in it. I started off as a Train Register as it was known, which basically meant my job was to make a note of all train movements in a specific area and mark them in a huge ledger. I had to make a not of if the train was on time or late, what type it was (passenger or goods), etc. If anything out of the ordinary happened, I had to mark that down too, and it did. More often than you would believe, trains were derailed or there would be a suicide on the line or some such like happening.

When someone takes the decision to step in front of a train, you KNOW they want to die. There is no coming back from that. Of course, they may have mental health issues but if they choose that route, they will be very very dead too. Thankfully, I only had to be involved in such situation three times during my time on the railway. The first time, I wasn't directly involved but saw the aftermath, when an old man decided to walk into a tunnel and step out in front of a train. Half an hour after the 'clean up' team went into the tunnel, we heard they had just 'found the head'!

The other two times I was involved were both at night and one involved a drunk man who, amazingly, "only" lost his right arm on the initial impact. I don't know to this day if he ultimately survived but I think the alcohol content probably helped to cushion the shock for him. He did make a lot of noise as they took him away in the ambulance though.

The other time was, I believe, a suicide. I was working as a train guard (conductor) by that time and the driver applied the emergency brake and reported to me he had 'hit something'. It was my responsibility to walk the line back to see what we had hit but I never ventured further than the hand I found lying on the line, severed at the wrist with the blood still oozing out of it! Once the incident was reported it was then my job to lead the police, ambulance and clean up team back along the line to where we found the person we had hit, or rather the remains of the person, details of which I'll leave out here!

When I worked as the Train Register, I was based in one of the old signal cabins with the big old heavy levers that had to be pulled to change points, set signals etc. Unofficially, the other signalmen taught me how to do all this, including recognizing and using the bell code signal, and before long, I was running my own little part of the railway, almost like 'playing' with a full grown train set.

I moved to become a Train Guard (Conductor) as I said and it was here, I really began to love the job. At that time, Guards were in control of the train. It was a safety critical position so, if we had doubts, the train didn't run and the service was canceled. In practice that rarely happened though. We had over fifty different routes and we 'did a turn' over each of them over the course of a month. I particularly enjoyed the ones that went down the coast of Scotland, even in winter, as it meant I got to get out of the city for a while and I also got to see the sea. There is little as 'bracing' as standing on the west coast of Scotland on a wet and windy November afternoon, trying to light a cigarette (I still smoked at that time).

Occasionally the train would just suffer an inexplicable loss of power and there was nothing else we could do but declare it a 'failure' and get hooked up to the next train to come along which, basically, pushed us the rest of the way. Everybody hated that job though. When a train 'failed' and had to be hooked up to another train it was the Guards job to do the hooking. This entailed using a 'buckeye' coupling and meant we had to get down on the track in between both trains and lift this huge heavy coupling - with ONE arm - whilst simultaneously pushing a restraining bar in to hold it in place. If you weren't quick but careful, it was all too easy to lose a finger or two in the process.

Most times though, the shift went without a hitch and there was plenty of time to just enjoy the traveling part or even to have a laugh (at the passengers expense), like the time when a white stick had been left behind on the train (How can you forget your white stick? Sudden miracle?) and the driver pretended to be blind, holding the white stick, as I took his elbow and led him to the drivers cab....... The passengers faces were a sight to behold. Such humor was sold off with the rest of the railway though and most staff these days are sober, frowning individuals.

I still have one of those love affairs with the railway that only young boys and grown men understand but, like most people, I remember how it used to be rather than how it is now. I still prefer the sight and smell of the old 303 EMU's and the DMU's which were part of my railway experience. Most of the trains now seem to be modeled on the Japanese bullet train, and that's just the local commuters. I can remember the trains (in the UK) which had a corridor and individual small 'rooms' rather than the open plan long carriages that are the norm now. Ah me for the bygone days..........!

* EMU/ DMU - Electric Multiple Unit/ Diesel Multiple Unit

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